1. Field of the Invention
The present invention relates, in general, to optical systems using lenticular lens materials or sheets to produce images, and, more particularly, to a lenticular lens system and method for producing images, such as 3-dimensional, colored images, inside or outside of containers with clear or translucent walls that includes forming at least a portion of the lenticular lens system integral with one or more of the container walls.
2. Relevant Background
Clear containers fabricated from plastic and glass are used extensively in packaging of goods ranging from bottled water, alcoholic beverages, and soda pop and other beverages to soap and other household products. Billions of such containers are produced each year typically using blow mold or injection molding technologies. The packaging industry continually struggles to meet two important and, often competing, goals: producing attention-getting, attractive containers to enhance marketing of the product inside the container and controlling material and production costs of the container.
In the competitive packaging and retailing industries (and especially, the beverage industry), marketing professionals and designers struggle to develop the individuality of their product, and most product differentiation is accomplished with the container and its packaging. For example, there is generally little difference between the products of one bottled water company and another and often little difference between one soda pop and another or between one alcoholic beverage and another. The differences are often ones of perception of the products in the minds of the consumer, and this difference in perception is created by advertising and marketing and, in large part, through creative packaging that leads to product identification by package recognition. Studies have shown that a large percentage of purchasing decisions are made at the point of sale when a consumer is faced with numerous products arranged side-by-side and that many of the final purchasing decisions are based at least in part on the attractiveness or distinctiveness of the packaged product or container combined with brand awareness. Hence, a great deal of time, effort, and money is spent on graphics, design, and presentation of the product container such that the product in its container stands out from other similar products on a shelf. For many products, the cost of packaging exceeds the cost of the actual product sold in the container or packaging.
Eye catching graphics in packaging can play a large part at the retail level in making a product appealing to consumers. In the packaging industry, there are a variety of techniques that can provide informational graphics as well as illustrative or xe2x80x9ceye appealxe2x80x9d graphics that include one color or use more elaborate multi-color graphics or photographs. More elaborate graphics are often produced with lenticular graphic labels using 3-dimensional (3D) and animation. Lenticular lens material is used in the packaging industry for creating promotional material with appealing graphics and typically involves producing a sheet of lenticular lens material and adhesively attaching the lenticular lens material to a separately produced object for display. The production of lenticular lenses is well known and described in detail in a number of U.S. patents, including U.S. Pat. No. 5,967,032 to Bravenec et al. In general, the production process includes selecting segments from visual images to create a desired visual effect and interlacing the segments (i.e., planning the layout of the numerous images). Lenticular lenses or lens sheets are then mapped to the interlaced or planned segments, and the lenticular lenses are fabricated according to this mapping. The lenticular lenses generally include a transparent web that has a flat side or layer and a side with optical ridges and grooves formed by lenticules (i.e., lenses) arranged side-by-side with the lenticules or optical ridges extending parallel to each other the length of the transparent web. To provide the unique visual effects, ink (e.g., four color ink) is applied to or printed directly on the flat side of the transparent web to form a thin ink layer, which is then viewable through the transparent web of optical ridges.
While these lenticular lens materials provide excellent visual effects, the use of adhesives and other attachment methods has not proven effective in producing high quality, long-lasting, and inexpensive plastic products. Because attaching the lenticular lens material after producing the container is inefficient and relatively expensive, the plastic manufacturing industry is continually searching for methods for attaching the lenticular lens material to plastic cups or containers as part of the cup or container manufacturing process. To date, the plastic manufacturing industry has only had limited success in overcoming the problems associated with using common lenticular lens material as part of standard plastic fabrication processes. The problems arise because plastic fabrication generally includes processes such as injection molding that involve heating raw plastic materials to a relatively high temperature (e.g., 400 to 500xc2x0 F. or hotter) and then injecting the fluid plastic into a mold with the shape of the desired plastic object or by otherwise processing the molten plastic. The ink or ink layer has a chemistry that does not stay intact when the ink is heated to these high temperatures, and the image is destroyed or at least significantly altered.
Further, the use of these graphic techniques is often rejected by the retail industry due to its high cost per container. The lenticular lens labels are typically costly and are difficult to justify based on a cost-benefit analysis, e.g., the additional customer attention and increased sales are typically not offset by the reduced profit on each product sale. The challenge continues to be to create eye-catching graphics or packaging at a very low cost or even with a cost that is similar to packaging already used in present products. Lenticular labels presently provide more desirable effects and graphics than holographic labels as lenticular technology allows the use of accurate color while holographic labels typically require large amounts of light often not available in retail environments and often do not reproduce colors effectively. There is a direct relationship in lenticular lenses between lens thicknesses and lenticules per inch (LPI) or frequency and the resulting amount and quantity of data and the overall graphic quality and effect achieved by the lenticular labels, which directly affects the labels cost and physical thickness. In other words, creating a desirable graphic is often a balancing act between adding data and increasing thickness of the lens and reducing material costs and label thicknesses. Similarly, a typical cost-cutting technique of container manufacturers is reducing the thickness or overall material used in the container and container walls. Some efforts have been made to utilize thin lens technologies to provide more data and enhanced graphics with less materials and reduced material costs, but the overall graphic effects have been only minimally successful with marginal quality and effectiveness.
Hence, there remains a need for a method and system of using lenticular lens technologies in standard containers to produce enhanced graphic effects to provide improved marketing capabilities for the container and product in the container. Preferably, such a method and system facilitates production of containers at a cost that is comparable to the cost of producing existing containers that do not incorporate lenticular lens technologies with similar material thicknesses and with similar container strengths.
The present invention addresses the above problems by providing a lenticular lens systems with a lenticular lens array fabricated as part of the container to be integral with one of the container walls. In other words, the container itself is used to construct a lenticular lens array to focus on a selected portion of the container in which a printed image is positioned. In one embodiment, the lenticular lens array is integrally formed in a front portion of a clear container wall to focus on a rear portion of the container wall with the lenticules on an exterior surface of the container. A label or other image presentation element is attached to the container so as to precisely position a printed image adjacent the rear portion of the container upon which the lenticular lens assembly is focusing. The lenticular lens assembly can be configured to produce a graphical image from the printed image at a number of locations within the container or, in some cases, outside the container. In one embodiment, the graphical image is displayed so as to appear to be floating within liquid contents of the container, such as water or other clear or translucent liquid, in the center of the container. The space or distance in the container between the lens array and the rear portion of the container is selected to facilitate focusing a powerful lens on the rear portion to enable a wider or more coarse lens array that has space to carry more data and/or more images, which creates a greater overall visual effect.
In an important embodiment of the invention, the lenticular lens system includes a lenticular lens array that is formed in a rear portion of a container wall with the lenticules formed on an interior surface of the container wall so as to focus on a printed image on a label (or on the exterior of the container wall) attached to the container wall. A viewer would look through a clear front portion of the container wall, through the bottle (and its contents), through the lens, and to a focal point directly behind the lens array. This embodiment is useful with glass containers that provide a greater optical gain due to the thicker walls of the container. This arrangement can be thought of as a lens in the container arrangement that is quite different from prior uses of lenticular sheets that were glued to exterior portions of containers. A lens-in-the-container arrangement is also useful for flexible or collapsible drink containers (such as juice pouches) in which a clear window is provided in a front wall (such as a wall containing a straw hole) and a lens array is provided in the rear wall of the container. The lens array is mapped to a printed image provided directly behind the lens array on the rear wall. Typically, the walls are metallic and opaque behind the printed image.
The lenticular lens array are configured or designed based on a lens fabrication process that utilizes a number of mathematical relationships of the lens array and container physical characteristics (such as lenticules per inch, radius of each lens or lenticule, viewing angle of the lens array, and curvature of the container wall) to create a focal point on the back of the container upon which the interlaced printed image(s) is placed or positioned with the label element. The label or printed image presentation element are attached to the container such that corresponding lenticules in the lens array in the front portion of the container wall are registered or mapped with the interlaces printed images on the label, which typically correspond to the lenticules in frequency. In some embodiments, the printed images are instead printed directly on the rear portion of the container wall (such as on the exterior wall of a glass or plastic bottle or container). The produced or viewed graphical images may be any of a number of images, such as 3D images or animation and effects may include full action video clips to images in full 3D that are floating in the container. The shape of the container walls, such as cylindrical or frustoconical, provide an optical advantage in that the a viewer can see around the produced images, which enhances a produced 3D effect. The cost of manufacturing a container with the lenticular lens system is significantly less than the cost to apply a lenticular lens label or attach a lenticular insert and is often comparable to the cost of producing the container without the added system (i.e., there is no or very little added material costs and relatively low original engineering costs and added manufacturing costs).
In one embodiment, the lenticular lens array is replaced with another useful lens configuration for focusing on the rear portion, such as a fresnal lens array, and in some embodiment, one or more light collection lenses are provided at different locations on the container walls to collect light and focus it on the rear portion and/or printed image to enhance the produced graphical image. Typically, the lenticules in the lens array are positioned to run vertically or parallel to a central axis of the container to provide 3D effects or graphical images. However, in other embodiments, the lenticules may extend horizontally or transverse to the central axis of the container to provide graphical images with movement.
More particularly, a container is provided with a lens system for producing a graphical image visible from the exterior of the container. The container includes a container wall with a front portion and a rear portion separated by a distance (such as the inner diameter of a cylindrical container). A lenticular lens array is provided integral with the front portion of the container wall with a first optic surface, e.g., a plurality of parallel lens or ribs providing lenticules, contiguous with an exterior surface of the container wall and second optic surface or transparent layer contiguous with an interior surface of the container wall. The lenticular lens array is configured with a focus distance substantially equivalent to the distance between the front and rear portions or with a focal point on or about the rear portion of the container wall. The container further includes a printed image, such as an interlaced image, positioned near the focal point on the rear portion of the container wall. Typically, the printed image is positioned so as to be registered or mapped to the lenticules of the array and may be printed directly on the exterior surface on the rear portion of the container wall or printed, such as with mirror printing, on a label which is then attached to the exterior surface of the container wall. In some embodiments, a lens element is also provided in the container wall to collect light striking the lens element and direct it toward the printed image or focal point.